Ok so fairly recently I made a blog about Dragon Age Origins (again, pure quality, go buy it!) but I also made a short remark on how rare it is these days with games that are actually good. The game market is basically 99% trash.
I think I need to do a rant about that now, because quite frankly it's getting tiresome. I bought Fable, but couldn't even finish it because it was lame as hell. Granted, it might be unfair to set "Baldur's Gate Quality" as the standard, but even when compared to Knights of the Old Republic, or even Neverwinter Nights, Fable STILL isn't CLOSE to even being decent!
BG, KOTOR and NWN are all games made by Bioware, and over time they at least manage to maintain the quality of their games. I used to be hooked on Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2 (made by Infinity Ward) when they came out, so I figured I'd go purchase Call of Duty 4 a while back. UGH! Shouldn't have done that! Terrible, terrible game...
Now CoD4 may be excused since I'm not that high on "regular" FPS-games. I like it when they throw some horror in there, like with F.E.A.R, which was a... decent game. The storyline was a bit weak though, but at least the game was interesting and fun to play until the very end - unlike, for example, Doom 3. Damn it, Doom 3 was seriously promising, and the foreshadowing at the start of the game was, dare I say, brilliant! But then once things go to hell (literally, hehe) the combat isn't the slightest bit varied, and they don't step the "scariness" level up very well either. Even though the random monsters jumping up at you feel intimidating at first, eventually you get tired of it and just go "Yeah, I could see that coming miles away".
Bleh.
Oooh and I just had a look at Fable 2. Sure as hell ain't gonna buy it, but I just looked at what I assume is the game map (see picture below), and that alone is annoying the hell out of me. It looks like someone asked ME to draw western Europe when I was drunk, with Spain being incredibly shrunk down, the British isle split in half, and the southern end of Sweden moved out in the ocean west of Denmark. That might seem like a silly complaint, but it instantly ruins the feeling for me where I try to imagine that I'm in some far off fantasy land.
Also, you see that "star" thingie I put a red circle around? Well, keep scrolling down...
What the hell, man? WHAT THE HELL?!? Whatever shitty company made Fable only took an already existing symbol (from the world's most famous board game after chess, mind you) and turned it upside down!
And as in most games (unfortunately), being good in Fable means you have to look like a complete loser. That kinda limits your gaming experience, or at least it does for me: My character is my alter ego and I want to look awesome! At least the folks at Games Workshop makes the "good" Warhammer characters still look badass - and that's even in the pussy-version of the game known as Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Just look at that High Elf motherfucker! He looks even more epic than the evil spikey guy!
How often do you see THAT in a game? Seriously! And then there's the "good guys" in the BADASS version of the game, Warhammer 40.000:
If it interests anyone, here follows a list of games that are actually worth playing!
We'll start off with my all-time top 5, which is RPG's only (I love 'em)
1. Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
2. Dragon Age: Origins
3. Planescape: Torment
4. Fallout II
5. Knights of the Old Republic II
Notable omissions are Neverwinter Nights (only the "Hordes of the Underdark" expansion was any good), but also Jade Empire and Mass Effect, but I actually haven't gotten around to playing those two yet. Yes I know, FAIL! I've just been busy... :/
And here follows some more games in no particular order, that I can think of on the top of my head:
Classics
Fallout I
Diablo I & II
Warcraft II & III
Imperialism*
Starcraft
Hearts of Iron II
Europa Universalis II
Age of Empire II
Civilizations II
Carmageddon
Heroes of Might and Magic III
Baldur's Gate I
(Fairly) New
Assasin's Creed
Dawn of War I & II
Europa Universalis III
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The "Total War" series
World of Warcraft**
*I'm actually STILL playing this game, and I got it when I was 7 or 8 I think. THAT, folks, is replayability! XD
**not a huge MMORPG fan myself, but I'll add it since it's easily the best in the genre
With that said, here is the video of the day, explaining WHY I'm not a fan of MMORPG's:
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I think I need to do a rant about that now, because quite frankly it's getting tiresome. I bought Fable, but couldn't even finish it because it was lame as hell. Granted, it might be unfair to set "Baldur's Gate Quality" as the standard, but even when compared to Knights of the Old Republic, or even Neverwinter Nights, Fable STILL isn't CLOSE to even being decent!
BG, KOTOR and NWN are all games made by Bioware, and over time they at least manage to maintain the quality of their games. I used to be hooked on Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2 (made by Infinity Ward) when they came out, so I figured I'd go purchase Call of Duty 4 a while back. UGH! Shouldn't have done that! Terrible, terrible game...
Now CoD4 may be excused since I'm not that high on "regular" FPS-games. I like it when they throw some horror in there, like with F.E.A.R, which was a... decent game. The storyline was a bit weak though, but at least the game was interesting and fun to play until the very end - unlike, for example, Doom 3. Damn it, Doom 3 was seriously promising, and the foreshadowing at the start of the game was, dare I say, brilliant! But then once things go to hell (literally, hehe) the combat isn't the slightest bit varied, and they don't step the "scariness" level up very well either. Even though the random monsters jumping up at you feel intimidating at first, eventually you get tired of it and just go "Yeah, I could see that coming miles away".
Bleh.
Oooh and I just had a look at Fable 2. Sure as hell ain't gonna buy it, but I just looked at what I assume is the game map (see picture below), and that alone is annoying the hell out of me. It looks like someone asked ME to draw western Europe when I was drunk, with Spain being incredibly shrunk down, the British isle split in half, and the southern end of Sweden moved out in the ocean west of Denmark. That might seem like a silly complaint, but it instantly ruins the feeling for me where I try to imagine that I'm in some far off fantasy land.
Also, you see that "star" thingie I put a red circle around? Well, keep scrolling down...
What the hell, man? WHAT THE HELL?!? Whatever shitty company made Fable only took an already existing symbol (from the world's most famous board game after chess, mind you) and turned it upside down!
And as in most games (unfortunately), being good in Fable means you have to look like a complete loser. That kinda limits your gaming experience, or at least it does for me: My character is my alter ego and I want to look awesome! At least the folks at Games Workshop makes the "good" Warhammer characters still look badass - and that's even in the pussy-version of the game known as Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Just look at that High Elf motherfucker! He looks even more epic than the evil spikey guy!
How often do you see THAT in a game? Seriously! And then there's the "good guys" in the BADASS version of the game, Warhammer 40.000:
If it interests anyone, here follows a list of games that are actually worth playing!
We'll start off with my all-time top 5, which is RPG's only (I love 'em)1. Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
2. Dragon Age: Origins
3. Planescape: Torment
4. Fallout II
5. Knights of the Old Republic II
Notable omissions are Neverwinter Nights (only the "Hordes of the Underdark" expansion was any good), but also Jade Empire and Mass Effect, but I actually haven't gotten around to playing those two yet. Yes I know, FAIL! I've just been busy... :/
And here follows some more games in no particular order, that I can think of on the top of my head:
Classics
Fallout I
Diablo I & II
Warcraft II & III
Imperialism*
Starcraft
Hearts of Iron II
Europa Universalis II
Age of Empire II
Civilizations II
Carmageddon
Heroes of Might and Magic III
Baldur's Gate I
(Fairly) New
Assasin's Creed
Dawn of War I & II
Europa Universalis III
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The "Total War" series
World of Warcraft**
*I'm actually STILL playing this game, and I got it when I was 7 or 8 I think. THAT, folks, is replayability! XD
**not a huge MMORPG fan myself, but I'll add it since it's easily the best in the genre
With that said, here is the video of the day, explaining WHY I'm not a fan of MMORPG's:
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